29 April

Today is presentation day and I did not sleep the whole night before, but I am still really stuck, and my storyboards are really bad.

I can still remember the day when we presented our ideas; many of my classmates’ ideas were not really approved as it was not a fully developed story yet, but just a scenario. Many would have though I am really lucky to have found one which has the full flow of story. I agree, but somehow, the story seems to act as a template I have to follow no matter and I get very frustrated by not being able to move out of it but to follow accordingly and it gets boring. What’s worse is that I do not know how to pick out the gist of the story.

I am worried for my presentation, mine will be tomorrow. I am sure comments will be bad, but for now, I am really lost.

Seeing my classmates’ presentations today were really encouraging, they did really great work and I can even see the final coming out of it already, can’t wait. I especially thought the way Rachael told her story and how she designed it is really fantastic! It is humorous, appealing, straight to the point and unique.

I have learnt that, we should design our characters according to their personality too and improvise with that point. For example, my story was an old man who adopted a kangaroo and I simply designed a fat old man with a fat belly, some of my friends told me he looked cute, that was really sweet of them. But thinking back, I realized that its not enough, I should have stylized it more and give clues about the characters and the things they will do and behave through their character design, this way, it also makes it more unique.

There is so much I have to change and do, but the timeframe now is too short! I really have to train myself to be better as if my course mates can do it, there’s no excuse for me.

Anyway, TY’s created her story in a very visually appealing way. I am amazed by her that even though the story can be rather disturbing as the performer is eaten up by a animals, she can make it out to be so harmless and entertaining. And just looking at her storyboards, even without the colours, I can already imagine the vibrancy and excitement of the whole scenario. Somehow, I think it is pretty amazing for I can even picture myself in the scenario itself as one of the audiences. I am still unable to grasp how they manage to do it, is it a play of good character design, the angles, or perhaps the story flow. I know, it must be a combination of all, but where do I start from? Sigh.

And Vivien’s character design has turned out pretty well as compared to before, but still there is room for improvement. You all have done well. (:

There were two talks for us today too. I really appreciate having these opportunities although I am really unsure if I want to continue in this line after I graduate. These talks are motivational as all these successful people are from Singapore too, and they are very normal people like us, just that they had a passion and never gave up. It helps to think that though Singapore is not very recognized, if you want it hard enough, you can reach it.(: